BLT Cupcakes: A New Chicago Staple?

By Melissa Wiley in Food on Aug 28, 2012 8:20PM

Chicago has long been stereotyped as a deep-dish pizza and BLT cupcakes kind of town. Confused about the latter? So were we when we saw these indecorous desserts listed just beneath Wrigley’s chewing gum among Delicious City Prints’ typographic ode to Chicago food culture. Funded by Kickstarter fandom, Delicious City Prints is the brainchild of Philadelphian Roni Lagin, celebrating signature city-specific foods through a poster series covering 15 urban areas in Europe and the United States. And, for better or worse, Chicago’s sweet side is portrayed in starkly diner terms.

To be fair, Lagin hints in parentheses, saying “(MMM … Bacon),” that he’s completely on board with cupcakes forgoing the usual frosting and topping themselves with Second City bacon, lettuce, and tomato. The BLT cupcakes are available on occasion at More, so we’ve heard, among other local cupcakeries and apparently famous enough to warrant a place on an out-of-towner’s summation of Chicago cuisine. We also suspect they easily feed into the public’s perception of Chicago as a greasy, guzzling sort of place, even where its desserts are concerned. Sure, we might technically have our own Magnolia Bakery, but the fact that we can make even cupcakes palatable to the Joe Plumber kind of crowd is still what bemuses outsiders.

The jibarito sandwich, hot dogs, Italian beef, and Tootsie Rolls also make an appearance on the blue-on-white Chicago screen print, available for $24 for an 11″ x 14″ or $34 for an 18″ x 24,″ unframed and signed. Delicious City Prints is having a fair amount of success, having exceeded its $4,000 Kickstarter fundraising goal by more than $1,200 on Aug. 19 with the support of 219 backers. Encouraged by this support, Lagin has since added three more cities to his project: Washington DC, Charleston, and Buffalo.